I love marriage. Thus, I have a bent to save marriages. (Most marriages are in constant trouble; sad but true.) And so whenever I hear someone giving bad (in this case, disastrous) advice to married couples, I have to expose 

the advice and then entreat couples to follow the Scriptural course. 

 

Here today is a ZWTF newsletter that I wrote four years ago. I was living in Brazil at the time but flew to Vancouver, Washington to attend a conference. It was there that I watched one of my colleagues (Clyde Pilkington) deliver a teaching on marriage that seemed Scriptural on its face, but that somehow rubbed my spirit the wrong way. I suspected that the teaching was wrong when I heard it, but I didn't exactly know why. As soon as I returned home, I analyzed the video (it is still on YouTube), pored over Ephesians 5, and then clearly saw the fatal flaw. 

 

In the message he gave in Washington, my colleague drew a false analogy from the famous verse in Ephesians (verse 25) where Paul says, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loves the ecclesia." Drawing a false analogy doesn't seem so terrible on its face,but if any husband or wife were to actually take this false analogy to heart and attempt to live by it, their union would enter a state of greater peril than before. I'm not saying that the couple would necessarily fail to survive it, but why risk the peril?

 

The irony is that this is the last thing my colleague would wish to do. And yet, in his zeal for marriage and in his zeal to serve and sacrifice for a wife, my colleague inadvertently makes things potentially worse, not better. 

Again, I know that this is the last thing my colleague would wish to do. This newsletter will plainly lay out the case. I stand by every word of it yet today. It is vital information for any marital union.

 

I used to believe precisely as my colleague believes. Putting into practice the teaching of my colleague contributed to the loss of my own marriage. This will be explained (although obliquely, in the third person) in a ZWTF

reprint that will follow next week (but that can be linked to today, if desired; you will find the link in today's edition). I do not want this to happen to anyone else. 

 

I have nothing but respect for the heart and spirit of my colleague. When I published this piece (in February of 2015) and the piece that preceded it in January, 2015 (titled, "Wife Loving; a Sober Reconsideration of Ephesians 5:25"), I did not know that this pair of articles would fatally impact the relationship between my colleague and me. For so sure was my colleague of his position, that my rebuttal of it seemed more of a personal affront 

to him than a Scriptural rebuttal. And yet it was never and is never and could never be anything more than a Scriptural rebuttal, for the love and respect that I hold for my colleague cannot be touched by professional considerations. And yet things have not been the same since. I regret this, of course, but I do not regret my articles. In fact,here I am reprinting them.  

 

As I said, I used to believe the very thing that my colleague espouses. In spite of holding this teaching, my colleague is an excellent husband and father. If I can save anyone from this particular advice, however, I will. 

And I will do it no matter what it costs me personally. It is that important; I learned the hard way. 

 

My colleague is free, of course, to practice marriage any way he wishes. He has written an excellent book on the little-understood topic of polygamy, titled, "The Great Omission." I recommend this book to everyone. People think they understand what polygamy is and why God instituted it, but they generally do not. This is the smartest book ever written on the topic. My colleague has also written a book that I highly recommend, titled, "Due Benevolence."I would wish that every man and woman would read this book. It is the best book on human sexuality that I have ever read. So you can see that my critique of my colleague is not general but specific, and it is geared—today—only upon this singular consideration, that is, the correct interpretation of Ephesians 5:25. 

 

I love the ecclesia and I love Clyde Pilkington. I love the institution of marriage. I wish for everyone to live happily ever after. Toward that interest, I present to you the following article. 

 

I am remaining your brother in Christ and servant in the Lord—

 

Martin Zender